Birgit Donker is the director of the new Mondriaan Fund, a state financed cultural funding organization that focuses on visual arts and cultural heritage, which originated from the merging of the BKVB Fund and the Mondriaan Foundation. Donker studied New and Theoretical history with art history at the University of Amsterdam, journalism at the École Superieure de Journalisme in Paris, and the postdoctoral study ‘Analyse du monde actuel’, also in Paris. She led the NRC Handelsblad as editor-in-chief between 2006 and 2010, and before her appointment as director of the Mondriaan Fund she was an arts editor at NRC Handelsblad.